Show HN: Learn Complete French Grammar for Free
learncompletefrench.netlify.appAs a part of my journey to learn french, I wanted to challenge myself to learn french to B2 in less time that it took me to learn spanish - around three years. Learning grammar is one of the fastest ways to get comfortable with a language and use it conversationally, but there's a problem here: it's also the most common approach. Every single school in America tries and fails to teach students french through cramming grammar. Every single online language course or app focuses on grammar and sells their knowledge behind a paywall, or are entirely ineffective at worst (looking at you, Duolingo).
The site I attribute the most to my success with spanish grammar is https://studyspanish.com/grammar, a completely free site with grammar lessons and corresponding exercises.
This website I created is my attempt at transpiling that site to french and democratizing french grammar knowledge in a logical, concise way following these principles:
- Active learning + recall: every single section has practice quizzes and exercises for you to test your knowledge. - Examples: there are ample pronunciation and sentence examples so you can learn words in context. - Goal-setting: Each level from A1-B2 has a "checklist" where if you can successfully translate a sentence from english to french or from french to english without any help, serves as an indicator that you have mastered those grammar concepts.
This project is meant to be a one-stop-shop for french grammar and practicing it, so you can then move on and learn languages through the strategies that actually matter: anki flashcards and comprehensible input.
The site is made with docusaurus and the exercises are based on JSON that I use AI to generate, from which quizzes can be easily made. Quiz progress and metrics are stored locally.
I completed most of the essential grammar, but I plan to continue adding on new lessons and exercises until the subjunctive tense, which would be B2 level.